Young men’s religious revival is a myth

Are young men rushing back to church in record numbers? To hear many in the media, especially conservative media, tell it, the answer is a big fat yes. According to these reports, there’s not only a stampede back to the churches by the young, but it’s being led by a surprising cohort: Gen Z men. This, we’re told, is highly unusual because women are typically viewed as more religious than men.

“[Y]oung men in the U.S. say religion is ‘very important’ in their lives compared to young women,” a recent Associated Press story read, noting this is “the first time young men have surpassed young women” on this measure. CNN got in on the action in September with a segment that argued a religious revival among young men was a major trend, with Richard Reeves of the American Institute for Boys and Men declaring that it’s “not politically driven,” even as he admitted that the group seems drawn to Christian leaders that teach women’s subordination. Fox News has heavily hyped this idea as well, producing segments insisting — without good evidence — that young men are converting in huge numbers or that they “are turning to faith more so than young women.” Other outlets like The Blaze and Breitbart have also embraced these claims.

“Churches Are PACKED Again” was the title of Riley Gaines’ April 3 podcast, which she hosts for Fox News. “There is a real deep set commitment,” she said, assuring her audience that statistics show “young men are out-attending young women” and it’s “the widest gender gap in 25 years.”

Except — they aren’t. A recent Gallup poll did include a surprising finding: In 2024-2025, 42% of men between the ages of 18 to 29 said religion is “very important” to them, which is up from 28% in 2022-2023. The figure also dramatically surpassed young women, who held steady at 30%. But a deeper look shows that young men are not actually going to church more than young women. When it comes to self-reported rates of church attendance, the two are basically the same: 39% of young women and 40% of young men say they go to church once a month or more. Even then, we should be skeptical. Sociologists have long noted that Americans overstate church attendance, often dramatically, on surveys, an issue experts chalk up to social desirability bias, the same behavior that causes people to exaggerate how often they vote, downplay how much junk food they eat or even deny they’d buy a fur coat.

This surge of self-proclaimed religiosity among young men likely has less to do with faith and more to do with politics — specifically, gender politics. As the 2024 election showed, young male voters have made a dramatic swing to the right. According to a CIRCLE Post-2024 Election Youth Poll conducted by Tufts University, a whopping 56% of men aged 18 to 29 voted for Donald Trump in 2024, compared to only 41% who did so in four years earlier. Women in the same age bracket voted for Democrats in both elections. This shift has been largely — and I believe accurately — attributed to young men’s consumption of a deluge of far-right propaganda online, packaged as “lifestyle” content, from podcasters like Joe Rogan, and a variety of TikTok and Instagram influencers.

This content has appeal because it takes this “boys will be boys” tone, often with a heavy emphasis on bro-coded subjects like fighting sports, marijuana use, dumb conspiracy theories, and a ton of sexist and homophobic commentary. But what hasn’t been discussed as much in mainstream media coverage of the podcast bros is how heavy-handed the Christian proselytizing can be. Among the chatter about dudes getting laid, getting stoned or lifting weights, there’s a surprising amount of hype for right-wing religious views.

In November, I wrote an in-depth feature on the “Whatever” podcast, a grossly misogynist program where cute young women — often those working as erotic models for OnlyFans — spend hours being berated about the alleged evils of feminism by the right-wing hosts. At first glance, it seems odd to imagine this is a Christian program; it relies heavily on visuals of young women in low-cut shirts and titillating talk about people’s “body count.” But the hosts often turn to biblical arguments to support their hostility to women’s equality. The show’s host, Brian Atlas, and his guest presenters fling religious rhetoric at the young female guests, usually to demonize reproductive rights or argue that women should be submissive to men.

On the flip side, overtly right-wing Christian podcasters have adopted the bro aesthetic to lure young male audiences. Hosts like Matt Walsh, George Janko and Andrew Wilson rake in millions of viewers using comedy stylings or shock-jock tactics that read as secular to an unassuming audience when, in fact, they are promoting a fundamentalist message. A growing number of self-identified pastors such as Dale Partridge, Joel Webbon, and Martin Sedra have borrowed influencer-style tactics to draw in viewers. Even the white supremacist Nick Fuentes claims to be speaking from a Christian perspective. There is also plenty of crossover to the secular side, with these Christian influencers doing stints on shows like Joe Rogan’s, which allows them to further normalize their rancid interpretation of scripture.

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These men aren’t preaching Jesus Christ’s gospel of self-sacrifice and humility. Their appeal largely comes from putting a youthful spin on reactionary views about gender. They preach that women should be submissive to men and, in some cases, that women shouldn’t even have the right to vote. There’s a lot of nostalgia for an imaginary past when men were supposedly more manly, coupled with a promise that those glory days can be resurrected by stripping women of their rights. To watch this stuff, you’d think the Christian gospels were mostly a long diatribe about how women need to get back into the kitchen, an issue that Jesus was notably silent on.

There’s even a subset of manosphere influencers who are doing this tap dance with Islam. Andrew Tate, a popular influencer is facing rape and trafficking charges in the United Kingdom and Romania, claims to have converted to Islam in 2022. Sneako, another Trump-hyping creator who objects to women’s suffrage and promotes women’s submission in often racist terms, told audiences he became a Muslim in 2023. Myron Gaines of the “Fresh & Fit” podcast, which uses the same woman-shaming format as “Whatever,” was raised Muslim and occasionally leans on that background to justify his misogyny as traditionalism.

Plenty of right-wing institutions will happily validate young men who possess fascistic or hateful views. There has been a small bump in church attendance, almost exclusively from young Trump voters., which suggests some have sought just that. But it doesn’t seem like an especially gendered phenomenon, which is why the rate of in-person church attendance among young men and women is the same.

The likely cause is less a real religious revival among young men and something closer to a grotesque pop culture trend that has been interwoven with a surge of fascist sentiment. We’re not seeing a surge of young men rushing to church. Instead they are sitting at home on their phones, absorbing sexist content that is often packaged in vaguely religious rhetoric to put a veneer of moral authority on otherwise indefensible sentiments. That is not the same thing as joining a church, much less attending one regularly.

The bad news is that this is rooted in politics and gender, and not the teachings of Jesus. But the upside is that, for a lot of young men, their commitment to conservative Christianity looks to be an inch deep. It’s a “faith” cobbled together by a bunch sexist notions picked up on podcasts. The appeal of it is obvious: This is “religion” that exists only to justify prejudices, and it doesn’t ask much of the listeners in return. No prayer, tithing or sacrifices, like abstaining from sex until marriage.

By the same token, there’s not much rooting them in this version of religion. The latest Yale Youth Poll showed that many of the young men who voted for Trump are growing disillusioned with the president. With that in mind, it’s not hard to predict a similar shift away from lightly-held religious convictions, at least when the Christian bro podcaster schtick starts to wear thin.